Friday 6th December was a truly memorable afternoon at Elwood Bathers for our second Literary Listings Lunch. We enjoyed a most delicious meal followed by an uplifting and engaging conversation from one of our finest novelists.

Australian literary icon Helen Garner chatted with fellow novelist Kate Mildenhall about Helen’s latest book, The Season. Helen spoke warmly of her year spent at the training and games of her beloved grandson Amby, about footy generally and it’s role in society, about men and grandparenting. We were gifted with gems from Garner on her writing process: her aim is to have as few words as possible on the page; that she loves rituals, “something about their formality, as you get older they are very comforting”; about judgement of herself and her characters; and even a discussion on the use of hyphens, in particular with ‘kick to kick’! The conversation was over before the audience was ready, the applause long and genuine. The joy on Helen’s face when discussing this book was worth the ticket price alone.

It was wonderful to have so many people from industry in attendance: booksellers, librarians, editors, authors, festival curators and even a literary journalist, in addition to the many supportive book lovers, family and friends.

Chris from Avenue Bookstore provided wonderful support with an enormous table of books from both authors, many of which marched out the door! The Season has had a second print run already and is in many lists of favoured books for 2024 already.

I’m grateful to my assistants Jinny Yang for being the welcome face for the guests, setting up the room and so many other things, and to Alessia Wynne for her wonderful photographs and many other things.

This was only our second Literary Lunch event, but will be hard to top!